Jazz Combos will perform October 29 concert

ISSUED: 22 October 2015MEDIA CONTACT: Valerie Owens

SHEPHERDSTOWN, WV — The Shepherd University Jazz Combos will perform on Thursday, October 29, at 8 p.m. in the Frank Center W.H. Shipley Recital Hall. The Jazz Combos, under the direction of Kevin Pace and Anthony Pirog, both adjunct faculty members, will perform selections from the works of John Coltrane, Thelonius Monk, Miles Davis, John Mayer, Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Jordan, Wayne Shorter, and more. The concert is free and open to the public.

A winner of the Louis Armstrong Jazz Award, bassist Kevin Pace has toured throughout the world. He has performed with the orchestra of the Long Leaf Opera Company of Durham, North Carolina, and in pit orchestras for musicals such as “Urinetown,” “A Chorus Line,” “The Music Man,” and “Company.” Pace earned his bachelor’s in music from Elon College and a master’s in jazz performance at the University of Maryland.

Anthony Pirog has played with many jazz, electronic and improvisational groups along the East Coast and leads several groups of his own. In 2011, the Washington Area Music Association named Pirog Washington’s Best Modern Rock Instrumentalist. In 2012 he was awarded a “Jazzie” by the Washington City Paper as Best Guitarist, and the Washington Post praised his music for its “fusion of talent and creativity.” He was featured in a September 2012 and January 2013 articles in Guitar Player Magazine.